Globus Hystericus
by InsaniaTorn
Summary: Eleven years ago, I was just a USS officer who had gotten too close to her target. I didn't know that I would soon be standing in a world gone mad, hand in hand with its new king.Am I his queen, you ask? Me? Of course not. Albert Wesker may have been many things, but fair was not one of them. And I didn't want to go the way Excella did...
1. Chapter 1

[Albert Wesker - 1986]

[Arklay research facility]

[Raccoon City, Pennsylvania]

It was in the humid summer months that Birkin's daughter was born. He seemed ecstatic about it, something that I couldn't quite grasp. With his research at the facility growing every passing day, what sense was there in starting a family? Brilliant though he was, Birkin had his flaws. From his unnatural hatred of the young Alexia, to this futile attempt at normalcy, he disappointed me.

We weren't normal men…we were gifted men. Why spoil that?

He was still a sight better than that fool, Askari. The good doctor was doting over his test tube child as if she were the sole purpose for his existence. I grew irritated at the constant displays of her development… I had to endure a merciless assault of pictures, footage, and generic babble about the child. Birkin, in his paternal stupor, no doubt found it all precious. I still did not forget the day Dr Askari let that child wander five floors down, all the way to our dangerous, viral research. It was pathetic, as a researcher, to allow his experiment to possibly be compromised like that! Of course, most people would have instead called it bad _parenting._

Today, the child in question was sitting on one of the chairs usually reserved for the board members; she was so small that she was barely able to peep over the top of the table. Her name was Ashera. Surprisingly, Spencer had allowed this little intrusion into his meeting. Truthfully, the child was quiet and well-behaved, but the presence of a little girl at a business meeting confounded me. She was Spencer's new pet project, supposedly a prototype super-soldier. I was uneasy with that explanation. The founder of a company such as this doesn't usually concern himself with a commonplace experiment.

Spencer was briefing us about something of great importance. The t-virus was making an advantageous headway; however, certain voices within Umbrella were calling for Marcus' research to be shut down completely. I was listening carefully enough, and I soon was too wrapped up in my thoughts of our newest development to pay the child much notice.

'When do you want us to act?' Birkin asked eagerly. This was the first time that I'd seen him enthralled by his work in a long time.

'I can see the calls for his termination strengthening in a few months…for now we shall keep a close eye on him. Birkin, when the time comes, the t-virus research will be yours,' Spencer stated evenly.

'So, we wait?' Birkin's voice had taken on a hint of disappointment.

'You will await orders, yes,' Spencer told him, 'I simply require that you be ready to act at a moment's notice.'

Birkin nodded quickly, his eyes darting from Spencer to me, as if he were waiting for me to say something. I really didn't care that Birkin was the one chosen to be credited with Marcus' research. Such trivialities defeated the purpose of doing anything productive in the first place.

'That sufficiently covers our agenda,' Spencer stood, and so did we. Little Ashera looked at us; her large eyes were impassive, almost doll-like. 'I suggest you both take her back to her father. She's bored by us.'

Birkin assented to this, but left the child to be led out by me. I shot him a sidelong glare. He claimed that she hated him, and it did seem to be the case. The girl despised Birkin…why I did not know. He certainly was friendlier towards her than I was. Instead, she was unreasonably attached to me, to the point of following me when she was left within the lab. I wasn't exactly aggravated by this development, simply perplexed. She followed, but stayed out of the way. Sentient, intelligent eyes tracked my movements, but she never uttered as much as a syllable.

'Do you like being in the labs, Ashera?' Birkin looked down at her, smiling in that fatherly way that made me want to throttle him.

'Sometimes,' her voice was quiet, her accent lilting high and low, all the while maintaining a soft monotone. Askari had decided to raise her away from America, in the third world home country within the depths of the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles, which he and his wife had once called home. I had my doubts about the idea, but I had long since decided against trying to understand the logic of Jonah al-Askari.

'Why sometimes? What would you rather be doing?'

'I want to go back to school.' She said simply, 'Daddy doesn't come see me there, so why do I have to come here to see him?'

It was a surprisingly eloquent answer for a six year old. She was showing her good genes… no doubt, not inherited from her father. When I considered it, he looked nothing like him either… her light brown skin contrasted his dark complexion, her features more delicate and refined. I had never seen her mother, so I couldn't be certain as to where her aesthetics lay. She carried a strange, striking look that could be termed as unique. When questioned, Askari pointed to both his and his wife's mixed lineages as the answer. I was rather apt to doubt him. Sooner or later, I would peruse her file myself. More than a few things were being poorly hidden… not the least of which was her true purpose.

'What's so good about school?' Birkin sounded thoroughly amused by her.

'It's more interesting than sitting in a room watching people work,' Ashera said, and her tiny hand gripped mine a little tighter. I did my best to ignore the nuisance. 'It's nicer at home.'

We had mercifully gotten to her father's floor. I opened the lab and led her in, and her tiny face set into something akin to disappointment. Someone was obviously not fond of their father.

'Dr Askari,' Birkin called, 'we've brought back your little girl.'

The cinnamon-skinned man in the isolation chamber nodded at us, and pressed the intercom.

'Thank you, sirs,' he said. His voice always shook.

Pathetic.

Ashera had let go of my hand on her own, and hoisted herself up on the high lab chair, looking sullen. We left her there, and as soon as the door clicked shut, I held Birkin back.

'I want that girl's file. There is something amiss here that I don't like.'

[1990]

[Umbrella Regional Research Facility]

[Chacachacare island, West Indies]

'This place was a leper colony,' Ashera explained, gesturing to the broken wrought iron fence of a nearby cemetery, 'nuns stayed here and ran it, they were buried here. Apparently, the island is haunted.' She added the last with an amused giggle.

I ran my eyes over it uninterestedly. The wretched island was disastrously hot, and the insect life could probably populate the entire United States several times over. Unlike the young girl, I was not enjoying myself. Spencer had sent me here to return some viral samples to him, trusting me in the hands of Askari's girl genius. She seemed to be discovering the thrill of research and science fully, though I wondered how that would fare with her father's apparent plans to have her begin her training soon. Like most prodigious youth of her age, she was almost ready to be enrolled in a degree programme, and was due to finish her last year of schooling soon. After the Alexia incident, Dr Askari was apprehensive about sending to work in viral research labs at a young age.

I'd seen a fair bit of her over the years, generally from her visits to the Arklay facility. Unlike her infantile self, she seemed to have grown a large desire to talk back to anyone and anything. Her wit was impressive enough, if not more than a little annoying.

As planned, I had gotten my hands on several of her confidential files. I even went as far as testing her DNA myself. She was no daughter of Dr Askari. I'd even found that she did not match her mother's genes as much as she should have, despite being birthed by the woman. With further testing, I was able to deduce that her genes had been spliced in from several different people, one of which was her birth mother. It was an occurrence that the scientific community doubted fiercely, and a method that most would not even try.

The girl herself wasn't aware of being an experiment. As the family of an Umbrella scientist, and being routinely in the labs, she was subjected to the same routine physicals as everyone else, and her records were filled thusly. I was still in the dark when it came to her actual purpose… Spencer's intentions were becoming increasingly cloudy, the more I considered the facts.

She led me to the facility, and took her usual station on the researcher's chair.

'I might be coming to Arklay soon,' she said, watching me stack the various petri dishes and syringes into their travelling incubators. 'I'm due to start my degree in a month or two. I can't beat Alexia Ashford, but I can speed through the system faster than most people,'

'Dr Askari is sending you abroad, I assume?' I didn't look around at her.

'Yeah. He hasn't told me where exactly,' her voice was bitter, 'I am looking forward to getting some serious research done when I can though. Working under you and Mr Birkin is something I look forward to the most.'

'I'm leaving the research facility,' I mentioned matter-of-factly. I heard the creak in the chair as she hopped off.

'Really? What would make you do that?'

I wasn't going to stand here and explain myself to a ten year old, but I placated her with one of the most commonplace excuses of fidgety scientists.

'I plan on expanding my horizons, Ashera,' I turned to face her, and found her staring at me, confused. 'I don't expect a child to understand, but I have an agenda to follow.'

She really was just a very smart child. Innocence, naïveté, and unblinking trust were on her face. I almost laughed. She would be a machine as a researcher, if they ever let her pursue it, however, unless she was allowed to grow up, she would always be someone's puppet. I had little respect for puppets.

She continued to look at me strangely, and led me out, without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

[Ashera al-Askari]

_My degree wasn't what I had expected… I was trapped, forever in Umbrella. I felt like a fool for thinking that my life would ever go as I had envisioned it._

_I remembered that uneasy, sinking feeling that Wesker's words gave me, all those years ago, when he called me a child. That dismissive tone…the condescension…I could never forget it. I realised that I really was one, in the worst way. I never saw what was right in front of me, the entire time. I only just realised that my life had never truly been mine._

_My father was just a figurehead. A pathetic figurehead for Umbrella. He had given me one choice: to join the USS after my degree was done, and train with them. What could I do? I took it. If there was one thing that I was completely certain of…it was that you didn't turn down the Umbrella Corporation. _

_And I didn't want to die at thirteen…_

_I remembered looking at the large weapons, in their cases. Could I even lift these?_

_I didn't want to fight at that age. After I became a USS operative, joined the USS, I'd changed so much I barely recognised myself._

_But I never regretted it._

[Umbrella Security Service: Mission Files]

[Bravo Team/ Codename: THE TRIBE]

[Mission 139: Termination of Liabilities]

[Date: February 3rd 1997. Location: Umbrella Pharmaceutical Base, VA.]

The static on the line made it hard to hear, but the instructions came through well enough.

'Headhunter, Bravo team is mandated to clean up a mess in Virginia. The suits gleaned money from the company budget and now they've threatened to blackmail anyone who sells them out. Seems like they know about the experiments in the underground lab, and they're using that as a bargaining chip... Needless to say, you have to exterminate the culprits and clean up that lab. Destroy everything.'

'Got it.'

'Oh, and Headhunter?'

'What?'

'Try not to kill the scientists. Spencer will have a hernia.'

'We'll try our hardest,' I answered sweetly, and the subtle click on the other end told me the dispatcher had hung up.

I inspected my weapons, listening to the boys' endless pre-mission banter. It surprised me a little to remember that today had made it five years since I'd been in the USS.

I didn't feel like celebrating.

The door creaked open and in came H.U.N.K., aka Mr Death himself. He radiated an all-business persona, and as far as I could remember, he'd always been that way. I'd seen under the mask just once... all in all, he had a bland face; not worth remembering, but if you knew who he was and what his reputation was, you could see it all etched into that face. Call it woman's intuition.

'Bravo Team,' he said. That was always how he greeted us, and the five of us stopped what we were doing to pay attention to him.

'Headhunter, I assume you've been read in.' I nodded briefly, got up and walked over to him, holstering the handgun. He handed me a file, and I flicked it open. I couldn't keep the surprise from my face, as I stared down at the file of William Birkin. I flicked to the next page, and felt a jolt all the way down to my knees. The other file was that of Albert Wesker.

'You're required to keep these two alive. One is a scientist, one is a working as an Umbrella Intelligence Operative. The others are cannon fodder.'

'Yes sir.' I almost sighed in relief. I didn't want to think about killing these two. As weak as it sounded, my childhood centred around them.

'Good. Now I should tell you that these aren't the usual experiments. They're a batch of our newest Bio-organic Weapons. You've run into the lot before when you trained, but these are further along than the ones you met when you were just a kid.'

I felt a little shock of fear, but I pushed it aside. I'd been visiting my father when that had happened, and I'd met H.U.N.K for the first time. I was supposed to be training as a future USS agent, but instead, I ended up going through a trial by fire. A batch of experiments had escaped right in our building and left me, a tiny fifteen year old, fighting for my freaking life. I'd clung to H.U.N.K like a lifeline, that is, until he'd made us split up. Then I was all on my lonesome.

Hey, I was still alive. Point for me, I guess.

'Consider yourself briefed. Now get out there.'

Two hours later, we were in front of the building, our tactical gear and guns covered by coats. We were locked and loaded, ready for business. We didn't have our masks on to protect our identities this time, considering no civilians were going to be leaving the place alive.

My hair trailed loose on my shoulders, and I was pretty sure I was wearing my killing face. It was one where I looked like I was vaguely enjoying myself, except my eyes were cold and unfeeling. I had only caught a glimpse of it a few times, as I did the majority of my killing with my mask and breathing apparatus on. When you work for a pharmaceutical company that makes bio-weapons, contamination becomes a huge risk.

For now, we were safe in this building. The labs were two stories underground, and not connected to this base. I gestured to the boys, and we moved in.

I could see the receptionist through the glass door. She was redheaded, just like Firekeeper, except while his hair was coppery, hers was darker and less metallic looking. She was smiling at several suit wearing men, and watched them until they went into the elevator. I moved closer to the door, and it slid open automatically. The woman turned to us, and her smile seemed a little frozen when she looked at me.

Yep, I was wearing the killing face. I took one look at the boys and they spread out.

'Excuse me, can I help you?' her head was turning as she asked, trying to take in all of us at once. I walked up to her.

I walked up to her and smiled; she didn't see me whip the gun out. Her eyes had only a second to widen in fear, and then she fell, with a large chunk of forehead missing, 'No need. We'll show ourselves up... ah...Laura.' I said, glancing at her name plate. The spray from the back of her head coated the wall behind her, little thick bits of brain matter sliding down.

'Lock the doors Bedouin,'

He nodded and hopped behind the desk, and started tapping away into the computer. Because of our almost unlimited clearance, he was instantly accessing the building controls. Umbrella makes every facility easily contained, as a rule of thumb. They know their ass is on the line with every new face they let in to one of their buildings. The automatic doors locked themselves, and so did the windows. The exterior windows were all probably made of Perspex, and not glass. They wouldn't shatter, so there was no way out. The cleaning was about to begin.

I looked over at Bedouin, his dark skin appearing almost washed out in the stark lighting. Firekeeper and the others were looking to me, ready for instructions.

'Bedouin and Witchdoctor, take the stairs. They lead to the back of each floor, so move towards the front, exterminating as you go. Firekeeper, Sharpeye and I will take the front of each floor. We'll meet up near the conference room at the middle of the second floor. We'll need to interrogate the bastards about who else knows.'

We took the elevator, and it only took a few seconds to get to the next floor. We shed the coats, and Firekeeper, his real name Scott, grasped behind him and brought out an Uzi which had been on a strap hung across his body. Xavier, aka Sharpeye, was on the usual USS backup pistol, a Desert Eagle .45 while I already had my Jericho-941 in hand.

As a general rule, Desert Eagle handguns were considered overkill, and were more than enough for stopping anything on two legs. We USS ops used them as insurance… to make sure that if we hit you somewhere: you'd be going down. The bad thing about being a petite girl was that the Desert Eagle was way too huge for my hands, not to mention the recoil made it a bitch to use. As a result, I used another large calibre gun, the Jericho 491, which was rightfully nicknamed the 'Baby Eagle'. It wasn't pretty, but it was a little easier on my hands. If the large calibre guns weren't enough, we were loaded with Hornady XTP ammunition, which generally tended to blow a big hole in whatever it was fired at. Messy, but effective.

But hey, I'd rather make a mess killing a B.O.W. than get eaten by one.

We all took the short ride to attach silencers to our weapons, and as the doors opened, we moved out in full tactical formation, guns up. The first door was to our right, and the plate on the door said that it was the accounting wing.

Time to murder the number crunchers.

In short, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of begging and a hell of a lot of running. After a nice game of cat and mouse, I'd shot down the last one. It was a man, no older than I was, with dark hair and eyes and a pretty handsome face. He'd been hiding under his desk, and I saw the shadow. Now he was staring at me, his dead eyes clouding over already, and the jagged hole in his forehead was dripping blood onto his angular nose.

Things like this bothered me when I started. The screaming made it hard to concentrate. I learned over the years that I shouldn't give a damn about these people if I wanted to stay sane. It was easier than I thought. Though, I didn't know if that was essentially a good thing…

We moved on. It was the same story for the advertising wing and the small room that was used as a lunch area. The real challenge started when we met up with the other two guys, and started on Conference Room 1.

The business executives and the scientists were all seated at a long, round table, and were deep in discussion when we burst in. They all almost leapt to their feet, looking around wildly.

'Get the fuck down, now!' I growled, and kicked the door shut. Bedouin stayed in front of it when I walked further into the room.

They all got onto their knees; some went further, lying on their stomachs. A few of the women had started crying. I spotted Birkin and Wesker, both seemingly unfazed by our weapons, their eyes glued somewhat incredulously on me. Oh, goodie, they remembered me.

I walked amongst the others, staring intently at each face, letting the suits get even more scared.

'Execs, please move to the back of the room,'

'What's the meaning of this? Who are you people?' a woman had gotten to her feet and was coming towards me. I pointed the gun at her face. She stopped, and her eyes were glued to the gun, so she appeared cross-eyed.

'I told you to kneel, bitch,' I smiled. I squeezed down on the trigger.

She fell back, crashing into the huge glass wall that went up the side of the building. She broke through it, and fell.

Huh. Well, looks like the windows on the other floors weren't Perspex. Go figure.

I looked down and saw that she was crumpled on a ledge. I turned back to the room, and the other hostages were looking at me, their faces contorted with fear and silent crying. They were afraid to even make a sound. Good.

The executives moved to the back of the room, with their fingers laced at the back of their heads.

'We're going to ask you a few questions,' Firekeeper said, his British accent soothing.

'Needless to say, it's best if you all just answer us truthfully,' I added, 'if not...well...' I gestured to the body on the ledge.

'Wh-what do you want to know?' one of the men, a tall guy with salt-and-pepper hair asked.

'Well, we know that you all have been doing some snooping on Umbrella...and some blackmail. What you know isn't really important at this point. Who else knows, is important. You're all going to tell us who else knows about what you're doing. Your family, friends, associates...whoever.' I looked at each face as I spoke, and I could see each one tighten into a grimace.

_Looks like they all told someone._

'Let's start with you, shall we?' Firekeeper walked forward and pulled a man from the end of the line. He had a thick head of grey hair, and looked to be in his late forties. He looked from me to Firekeeper with wide, green eyes.

'Who did you tell, Mr.-?'

'Kendrick...' he didn't want to look at us anymore. He had begun to shake uncontrollably.

'Who did you tell?' I repeated the question, my voice unchanging.

He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. Ah, it seemed as if it was someone he cared about. I holstered my gun, and the rustle of leather made him look up. I reached behind me for my sheathed cutlass. Back when I was home, we referred to such a blade as a cutlass, but to the rest of the world, it was a _machete._

He knew it was coming, and he looked up at me, pleading, almost screaming with terror.

'Please don't...please! I'm begging you please!'

'All you have to do is spill...'

'You'll kill us all anyway...' a man still against the wall said quietly.

I didn't pay any attention to him. 'Come on now, Mr Kendrick. Who did you tell?'

He continued to shake and beg. I sighed, and looked over at Firekeeper.

'Hold him.'

Firekeeper shoved his foot between the man's shoulder blades, sending him down to the carpet. He was squirming, trying to get up again. I looked over at Witchdoctor, and he held the man's arms without being told. He held them at the forearms, leaving more than enough space for me to work. He glanced up at me with his dark eyes, his face impassive.

I shot a little glance at Wesker and Birkin; the latter was staring at the man on the floor, while Wesker was looking at me.

'We're ready for you, ma'am.'

I turned away from them and walked over to the man, just as one of the other executives started yelling at me.

'He'll talk! You don't have to do this! Justin, please, tell them!'

'He made his bed. Let him lie in it.' I raised the cutlass. The thing about blades like these, they don't generally go through bone easily. Mine was sharper than most of the run-of-the-mill agricultural machetes, and when it connected with his finger, it gave a little resistance, but I'd applied enough force for it to go right through. He began screaming in earnest, and started to put up a fight.

Firekeeper shot him a kick to the groin, and he settled into quiet whimpering.

'Ready to talk?'

He looked up at me, his teeth gritted, and spit was rolling down his chin as he hissed in air.

'Fuck you!'

'Well, that's an unfortunate answer…'

I cut off another one, this time, deliberately using less force. The finger didn't come off, so I started sawing at the bone. I hated that grating noise it made. I felt one of my eyes twitching in irritation as I continued.

I heard retching from the back of the room, and praying. I blocked them out.

By the time this digit had gone, he was singing like a little bird. He'd told his wife, and his brother, whose names he gave up in a heartbeat. Bedouin had scribbled them down, and we turned to the next in line.

After watching what we'd just done, everyone else gave everything up, between their retching, crying and praying. I moved back towards the door, with my team behind me, except for Firekeeper and Witchdoctor. They raised their machine guns, and rained bullets upon everyone who was unlucky enough to be standing. That was pretty much all of them at this point, save for Mr Kendrick, who was still, and quiet on the floor, and the scientists who were kneeling.

When the last body fell, silence tore through the room. I heard Mr Kendrik's dry whimpering, as he moved enough to cradle his maimed hand. I turned to him as the rest of the team left, and I shot him in the head.

Silence once more.

'You all can get up,' I said, looking over at them, and gesturing to the door.

They all rose, most of them rightfully looking scared out of their minds. I gave Wesker a little grin.

'Fancy meeting you here,'

'Indeed,' he sounded utterly bored. Five points for him.

'Ashera…' Birkin breathed, 'you're USS now? Since when?'

'Since a while…1992 to be exact. I'll ask you not to call me by my name around your…ah…associates. I'd rather not have to kill any of them,'

Birkin nodded. 'You've grown up well.'

'Not the word I would have used,' I laughed and motioned to the bodies on the floor. Birkin looked uneasy for the first time.

'What are you here to do?' Wesker asked. He and Birkin hung back, walking with me while the others were being herded ahead by the boys.

'Massacre the suits, and destroy the experiments.'

'So that means we're safe,' Birkin said.

'I didn't say that,' I smiled. Birkin froze. Wesker was looking at me evenly through his usual dark sunglasses. 'Don't make this difficult gents. Walk ahead of me and behave, and you'll be fine.'

Birkin walked on stiffly, not trusting me. I saw Wesker tense slightly, and I shoved the gun into his back.

'Don't get cute.' I brought my knee into the small of his back, and he buckled, grunting slightly, 'I know you can fight. No need to die proving it.'

He got up in one fluid motion, and smirked at me. He looked a little winded, but otherwise unaffected.

'I expected something a little more drastic from a USS operative,' he sounded as if he was taunting me.

I rolled my eyes, 'Consider it a courtesy, since I've known you for so long. The next is a quick bullet to the head, so if I were you, I'd start walking.'

He laughed softly and walked ahead. I glared at his back, wanting very badly to kick him again. Wesker always had a knack of making me feel stupid. Then again, I always had a knack of being nicer to him than I was to other people.

A doormat? Who, me?

Don't answer that.


End file.
